


Silver

by antsu_in_my_pantsu



Series: Greyscales [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Afterlife, Angels, Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, POV Third Person Limited, Rare Pairings, Regret, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Hatred, excessive amounts of edge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 16:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antsu_in_my_pantsu/pseuds/antsu_in_my_pantsu
Summary: There the two stood, ivory and ebony in eternal love.---The mastermind must pay a recompense of sorts to her beloved before she may set foot under the gallant gate on the hill.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Shirogane Tsumugi, Akamatsu Kaede/Shirogane Tsumugi
Series: Greyscales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516631
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Silver

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: this fanfiction CAN operate as a remote story! I feel it works best within the context of the rest of the Greyscales series, but it also works as its own story. Onto the self deprecation.   
IMPORTANT NOTE 2: i posted this story like 2 weeks ago but nobody saw it! So i’m reposting  
I don’t think I like this fanfiction. I really enjoyed the idea of this story, an artsy surrealist story of reconciliation in the afterlife, but in reality I feel like it’s a letdown compared to its predecessors.   
That being said, I think I have an array of interesting ideas to present in terms of the kaemugi dynamic, and my only way to reach a fraction of an audience is to write a story, so fuck if I didn’t write one.   
Bon appetit, gamers. ♡

The first thing Tsumugi noticed was that the gates were made not of gold as she expected, but rather an iridescent silver. Glittering and amorphous, they spangled in the distance. 

The second thing Tsumugi noticed was that she was able to perceive gates at all. 

Based on a solid five seconds of empirical observation, she concluded that she was not, in fact, incarcerated in the blistering and torrid abyss of Lucifer’s inferno. No evidence of even one of the nine circles was present. In spite of this, she was incredulous to the idea that this was a paradise of sorts.

The more she scrutinized her surroundings, the sooner Tsumugi began to take fright, for there was nothing. The matter encircling her was formless, ever morphing and shifting between rigid and miry formations, yet ultimately noncommittal.

Moreover, the landscape shifted with a certain tenuousness. The strange bleached matter encompassing her vision was truly vague in its existence, for it retained no defining traits that could establish itself as any particular material. It was as if the very ground could not keep itself together, and not unlike a rubber band pulled taut, it was attempting to relieve traction born from within. It writhed because it had to, in some disturbing way.

Tsumugi’s eyes strained to make something, anything out of what she found herself feebly submerged in, yet to no avail. The matter was unable to be deciphered. The only stationary thing about her was the closed gates, standing tall and proud as a malevolent monarch does before a serf. They were menacing and disquieting and Tsumugi thought it was suspicious that they were opulently perfect with no rust or dents, yet they were the only beacon of hope in a sea of the nebulous substance.

The longer Tsumugi was immured in this odd realm, the more she began to believe she had been cast into the nether, prime game for any cruel blight to prey upon in a state of such frailty.

However, it was only with great difficulty that Tsumugi could pinpoint the amount of time she had spent in the mysterious place. It seemed as though she had just been born into this plane mere few seconds ago, yet her soul felt as if it had been deteriorating there for years. She was both youthful and haggard at once, as if her body was attempting to live in increments of staccato seconds and prolonged years at once. It was disorienting, and Tsumugi quickly grew exhausted at attempting to quantify anything in regard to the passage of time as well as her location. 

She was left with her rotting rationality. 

Tsumugi idly wondered if another soul resided in the blanket of monochrome _ ,  _ or if she was truly on her lonesome. It wasn’t as if she was undeserving of such a fate.

Despite not knowing where she was presently located, Tsumugi was able to recall her life in vivid detail with all too much ease. It was a villain’s narrative, one featuring ironically misplaced affections, despondency, and slaughter. In woefully lucid specificity, she was able to hark names and faces and locations of those who had the displeasure of knowing with her. There were a few obfuscated patches in her reminiscence, but Tsumugi was anything but ungrateful for these failings of the mind. Anamnesis was a plague. Yet the memories that she did have were distant, pushed to the furthest abyss of her consciousness. No matter what suffering they conducted, whether it was a dull ache in her bones or an exquisite perforating of the spirit, Tsumugi knew she detested these recollections. Knowledge was a rotting apple, one which she had been force-fed by the skeletal hands of death. 

Alone, she was left to contemplate, left to fiddle with painful memories of who she was and everything she hated. Tsumugi quickly found the two items were identical. 

After a prolonged period brimming with odium of the self, a glint of heavenly light waltzed over the hilltop, frolicing through the bleached fields of Asphodel. It was a shard of gold in a profusion of plain grey, a luminescence of unparalleled grace. 

Tsumugi didn’t need the gates any more. She had a new, far more appealing article of existence to cling to. It was the most brilliant luster Tsumugi ever had the pleasure of bearing witness to, and she decided that she never wanted to look upon anything else ever.

Hastily, that fulguration took the figure of a girl, an enchanting woman adorned with glowing, marigold-like hair. 

Tsumugi’s mouth grew grainy, as if it was thronged with cotton balls. With her arms outstretched, she attempted to sprint to the mysterious maiden, yet her efforts were in vain. Despite every muscle in her body working, she remained unmoving, frozen in one location. The scene was reminiscent of her mortal nightmares - the ones she had during the game - which were completely unbound to any rules of logic, ones which she purposefully avoided sleeping in order to never see again. 

Tsumugi opened her mouth, yawping with all the power in her lungs, and she trembled with the force she was expelling. Not even a squeak was sounded. 

Perhaps this was her punishment, doomed to assume the role of a passive observer, one who beholds, never to be beheld. The fates are cruel like that, Tsumugi supposes, and she allows herself to watch the dame slip behind the gates of sterling, never to be seen again.

This exchange was outside the realm of time, Tsumugi decided, and therefore she will not spare it another thought. 

In a sick way, she desired for nothing more than to forget the golden girl, but she found herself growing fixated with startling celerity. With her uncannily superlative eyesight, she had been able to see specific features of the girl’s visage, a canvas adorned with cherry blossom lips, full cheeks, and lush lashes. This was a woman of dreams, a woman of the gods. Helen of Troy surely envied her. 

Vexed, she stood and pondered. Despite the girl’s otherworldliness, Tsumugi, in an abiding moment of _deja vu_, felt they had crossed paths before. Perhaps it was in another cycle of the moon, perhaps it was in a dream, or perhaps it was in the pink of a rose, but Tsumugi was unable to help but think that they were once acquainted. 

Hallowly, Tsumugi reminded herself that, even if the eerie air about her head was correct in regards to her unjustified penchant, she would never see the mistress again anyhow. She allowed herself to have a fleeting moment of lamentation, and then she recuperated her thoughts and prepared to endure another period of seclusion. Tsumugi detested her penance.

Before she could wallow a moment longer, the gold glimmered back into view, a guiding light to a desperate soul. She does not keep her distance, and Tsumugi cries out in a primal moment of rapture. This time, the sound carries. She would experience liberation from her crippling remoteness.

As the girl approaches, nubivagant, Tsumugi saw more of her paradisiacal appearance. Four wings of fire burst from her shoulder blades, nearly as incandescent and radiant she who possessed them. The girl had a kind face embellished with side swept bangs and freckles peppering the bridge of her petite nose. Her eyes did not boast pupils, as there were only entire orbs of pastel pink floating in an expanse of white. She was clad in an open-back robe of woven alabaster that cascaded down to her ankles. It tapered off indefinitely, mixing with the ground, for it had no clear cut-off line. Tsumugi suddenly grew rather self conscious of her own Grackle-black robes and lack of pinions, as she wanted nothing more than to feel a kinship with this girl who was glittering as though she were the sun. 

The girl’s slender hands were in a state constant of play at her sides, fiddling with her own fingers of her robe. It was as though they had a mind of their own, waiting to be put to use, to create a masterpiece.

Based on her mien alone, Tsumugi concluded she was a symphony waiting to be performed. 

The blue girl was so preoccupied by her own musings, she didn’t realize the angel was only two paces away until she could feel the warmth being cast off her body.

The girl was gorgeous. She was captivating. She was engaging and entrancing and she was like a vortex in how everything seemed to gravitate about her, how she held herself with such certainty that the ground was curving around her, framing her, screaming at Tsumugi that this individual was important. 

She was Kaede Akamatsu. 

In an ironic way, it made perfect sense Kaede Akamatsu stood before her. She was always too quintessential, too immaculate for the world she occupied. She never should have belonged to the realms of living beings in the first place. That world was much too befouled to handle her presence; therefore, it is perfectly understandable that same world expelled her with such haste. 

Kaede was the first to speak. 

Her timbre braided with qualm, she lightly said, “Tsumugi?”

“It’s me,” The mastermind affirmed, voice fracturing, “I… Kaede - Kaede Akamatsu, it’s you?” 

“Yeah,” She smiled softly, “It is.”

An invisible barrier shattered when Kaede reached out to Tsumugi, intertwining their digits as an act representing the covenant of love between their souls. Tsumugi chooses to believes that’s what the gesture was representative of, anyway. 

That belief is affirmed when Kaede draws her closer, swathing Tsumugi into a tender embrace. Her wings cover the other’s body, acting as veneer between them and the blank world encompassing them; this moment was only for them. Kaede’s aura exerted a balmy serenity over Tsumugi, one that made her knees wobble and her heart flitter. She presses her forehead to Kaede’s, as if to fully absorb her presence. 

The seemingly timeless moment turned transient, over all too soon, leaving Tsumugi feeling as though her lungs were filled with wintry waters. The bitter sensation subsided as quickly as it had come over her as Kaede thumbed Tsumugi’s cheekbone, supple skin giving away under her calloused hands. 

The angel chuckled, the sound tinkling like high octave piano keys. “You’re not wearing your glasses.”

Tsumugi’s hands darted to her face, grabbing for spectacles that, as Kaede declared, were apparently not there. 

“I can see perfectly, though,” Tsumugi muttered to herself, introspection as to why that could be. 

“I think that everyone has perfect vision here.” Kaede wistfully replied, “Everything is weird and hyper-detailed, you know? It’s like HD graphics.”

“What even is ‘here?’”

The question laid thick over the air like a wool blanket. Kaede took a step back, looking around her as if the surroundings were new. They weren’t. Her blazing wings jittered nervously, scattering sparks to her surroundings.

“It’s the afterlife, I think. Maybe it’s heaven. It’s probably not. It might be the in-between place.” Kaede spoke, slow and sure. 

“Ah. Not-Heaven.” 

“Yeah.”

“Surprised?”

Tsumugi tilted an eyebrow at the inquiry and its implications. “Yeah, to be honest. I thought I’d be, ah, well, you know, burning alive right now.” 

“I held the same suspicion,” Kaede’s pupils dilated as she the words tumbled into open air, and she began sputtering, “Not because you’re a bad person! Shit, no, I - wow, ha, I’m really screwing this up already, huh? Well, I didn’t want - I - I don’t think you’re a bad person,”

Despite Kaede’s previous apprehension, she uttered the last sentence with a precise veracity that startled Tsumugi. 

“You think I’m good?” She asked, eyes fixed on the other’s.

“Yes, absolutely.” 

“That’s funny.”

They both knew it was far from comedic. 

There was severe quietude. 

“We’re kind of bad at this, aren’t we?” Kaede avered, casual merriment permeating her words. 

“Yeah,” Tsumugi said unpoetically.

The quietude returned, more potent and noxious then its inception. Millions of uncomfortably tacit words hung between them and over their heads, leaden on the collective conscience. There were apologies to be had, conversations to undergo, yet neither dare insight them in the wake of their sheer volatility. Perturbation ruled their minds, a tyrant. 

Tsumugi amassed her impossibly small amount of courage.

Unheroically, she confessed, “I’m sorry. For what I did to you. You didn’t deserve that. I hate myself.” 

Kaede’s tongue slivered out of her mouth, running over her lips, tentative. Her eyes were narrowed, jaw set like a brick in mortar. 

“I don’t blame you for what happened to me.”

“You should,” Tsumugi said as if it was obvious. 

Kaede tilted her eyebrows. “But I don’t.”

“Even though I killed you?” Tsumugi’s words were cold, her voice cracked ice. 

The blonde’s expression twinged into affliction, “It wasn’t like that.” 

“I literally - I actively planned the - the slaughter of your friends,” Tsumugi sputtered with rancor decisively placed in her tone. “I planned everything. I caused everything. It was _my _fault. It was my fault…” 

Tsumugi wavered, causing her words to crumble away, losing their initial acerbic edge.

Kaede remained steadfast and undisturbed. “I know you regret it, Tsumugi. I know you didn’t want to be this way, and I know you didn’t want me to, um, die.”

The mastermind trembled in her bile, irate. What Kaede said was true, Tsumugi did regret her actions to the point where residing in her skin was, in and of itself, a contemptible action that made her sick. Still, Kaede would never understand the inherent evil that Tsumugi believed was festering in her soul, and that’s what got the pianist killed, the mastermind thinks. Kaede’s righteousness was the rope that hung her, and now she was dead. What a vice to die by - trying too hard to be good. Tsumugi envied her ignorance.

“If I didn’t want you to die,” The reprobate spoke heavily, every single syllable incisive, “Then why would I suggest to my fellow writers that the protagonist should be the first to die - no, not just die - the first to be executed? The first to commit murder?” 

Kaede didn’t speak. 

Maybe if Kaede hated her, then Tsumugi could believed she had atoned thoroughly. A rejection from her most dearly beloved would peel the skin, tainted with stigmata, from Tsumugi’s bloodied hands, would it not? The worst punishment could act as the cause for the most agreeable reprieve, an act of violent detestation could save her soul yet. 

Tsumugi continued in her disquisition. “I knew who you were, Kaede. That didn’t matter to me. I wanted them to respect me. I wanted them to adore me, even if it meant sacrificing you.”

Kaede couldn’t speak, or she didn’t want to. It was unclear which, but Tsumugi didn’t care. 

“And in knowing that,” The mastermind sustained, “ I volunteered you to be slaughtered. Mercilessly killed. And for what? A deranged, bloodthirsty audience… Kaede, believe it or not, we were friends before the game.”

“You know, Tsumugi, I have my memories now. Of who I was before.” Kaede retorted, casual. 

“Do you?”   
“Yeah. It’s a side effect of dying, I guess. I’m aware of everything that ever happened in my life.”   
“Are you?”   
“Yeah.”

Tsumugi’s eyes drifted to the ground which, in its pure whiteness, seared her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” 

It was the most sincere sentence Tsumugi ever articulated.

“Don’t be,” Kaede countered. Her expression was painfully neutral. “I’m happy I’m not who I used to be any more. I’m happy I died a different person.”

“Is that so?” The blue girl said numbly, her mouth moving like an automaton. She didn’t spare the smallest of glances.

Kaede continued, “In a weird sort of way, I don’t think I was ever supposed to be her - who I was before the game. I think you made me into who I was meant to be all along.”

“I killed you.”

“I wanted to die anyway.” 

“Only before I destroyed your memories. You didn’t want to die when you did, though.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Kaede looked pained, not aggrieved. “I died a better person, and it was because of you.”   
Tsumugi rejected the notion immediately. “No. Nothing I do is ever good.” 

“I’m forgiving you.” Kaede pleaded quietly, yet firmly, as she clasped Tsumugi’s wrist. Her wings grew in size, scorching flames licked Tsumugi’s palpitating body. 

“Stop it. I don’t deserve this.” The mastermind squalled in a strident voice, “Why don’t you fucking get it? I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I don’t deserve  _ you _ ! You should hate me!”

The angel, with her unoccupied hand, planted unyielding palm on the other’s shoulder. “Shut up! Just shut up, okay? I don’t hate you. I don’t want to hate you. I know what you did was wrong, and I probably should dislike you at least a little bit, but I can’t bring myself to. I don’t want to. I died a hero, and that’s all that matters. I can’t change that, and neither can you.”  
“But you could’ve had a good life if you survived. He would’ve loved you. I’m half the person he is,” Tsumugi weakly protested. 

Kaede shook her head in a fatigued fashion. In an astounding act of remedy, she embosomed Tsumugi once more, doting and nurturing. A choked sob rippled through her, tearing out of her tremoring lips. 

“Please, stop. I don’t want to be angry with you, Tsumugi. What’s done is done.” 

Tsumugi, at first tense, melted into her touch, allowing herself to pule. She knew she had been wrong. It was easier to accept hate then it was to receive love, but now was a good time as ever to learn.

They shared an intimate moment of lamentation, grieving over the lives they never lived and the shitty ones they were forced to suffer through. Their tears floated up their eyelashes, into the heavens above, as if gravity did not apply to drops of the mourning.

Kaede hid her face in the crook of Tsumugi’s neck, a familiar and welcomed action, and we[t. Tsumugi tightened her grip around Kaede’s waist. It felt oddly good to hurt while in company.

After an eternal beat, the mastermind was, surprisingly, the first to vocalize. 

“You were right. I do regret it. Not a second goes by where I don’t hate myself for what I did. God, I love you,” She said, “And I can never mean it enough. I’m so hopelessly in love you, Kaede. I’ll never be able to stop being in love with you, no matter what you say or do. I love you.” 

Kaede replied, apace, “I want to kiss you. Can I please kiss you?”

Tsumugi’s skin prickled at the thought. Her heart gnawed at her innards, leaving her anatomy with a resounding pang of nostalgia. 

The blue girl unthinkingly nodded, clenching her fists in the thick fabric ornamenting the other girl’s body. Kaede languidly took Tsumugi’s face into her hands, and just before affixing their lips, leered with pansy eyes. The pink circle in the whites of her eyes widened.

The kiss they shared was chaste, yet vehemently emotional. They stood on equal ground, and this one display of affection would act as a white flag now and for the end of time.

Guilt was not to be assigned, it was to be burnt in the fires of their undying love. What happened in the mortal world meant naught to their present condition. Their conversation may have been five seconds ago or it could have been five eons ago, and it would’ve made none the difference. 

The two lovers shared a mutual maturity between them, a common understanding of who the other is. They were far too superior to worry of such trivial matters.   
There was Tsumugi, Kaede, and the silver gates. 

In an odd gesticulation, the blonde brushes her thumb over the other’s forehead. It leaves behind a thick residue with seemingly no origin, but it smells of wildflowers and candle wax, so it is liked. 

When the kiss is broken, the two peer at each other, plain grey and saturated pink engaging in divulgence of one million words. The air is inert. The oil substance drips down Tsumugi’s face, curving down her face and under her chin. Tsumugi wonders why it didn’t rise like her tears, but the thought was disposed of. The skin tingles where it touched. 

In paroxysm, Tsumugi fell to her knees, convulsing. Agony tore through her body at an incredible rate, consuming every nerve. Her bones felt as though they were being spalled, as if marrow dripped around the splintering pieces. She thought her muscles were being lacerated into stringy scraps. In its entirety, her vision obscured. Tsumugi only saw white, a pale hue lacking nuance. 

This distress was beyond that of a boulder crushing her. At least then, it was only a flash of pain before the honeyed deliverance of demise consumed her. This new affliction was a cauterizing of her entire body, inescapable and immediate. 

For a moment that lasted all too long, Tsumugi speculated if the events leading up to this was a ruse. She convinced herself of it, for she was howling in raw agony, crying for the help of her lover, yet she received no aid. This is the inferno she so expected, one in which she had a taste of paradise before it was torn out of mouth, and she was left to starve. She braced herself to become acquainted with the archdevils. 

However, Tsumugi began to wonder if amnesty would tend to her. The searing sensation had concentrated itself under her shoulder blades, growing thrice as strong, yet the rest of her body was left in a state of insensate lassitude. 

In a final instant of blithering distress, the flesh around her spine tore open, viscous and golden blood dribbled over the ragged stips of her skin. The blood of gold floated towards the aether, as did the pain. Scintillating flames poured over Tsumugi’s pale complexion, a deluge of azure, copper orange, and flaxen yellow. Steadily, the bazing waves focused into the form of two pairs of wings emblazoning the twitching girl’s back. They were grandiose and ostentatious, a stark juxtaposition their possessor. 

The ritual had been consummated.

Tsumugi blinked once, twice, thrice, and her vision speckled back into clarity. She meekly raised her head, the motion mechanical as her bones creaked. Kaede was looking down to her, the worriment in her expression conspicuous in the way her nose was scrunched, eyes attenuated, hollyhock-colored irises diminutive. 

Consternation overtook the body of the reborn one, diffident in her appearance. Kaede’s expression shifted from uneasy to inquisitive, further wracking the nerves of Tsumugi’s frantic yet enervated body. 

Kaede rested beside Tsumugi, not once peeling her eyes away from the other as she did so. All four of her wings lowered at the same pace as if they, too, were in fear of illicitng a reaction out of the other girl. Tsumugi, animallike, latched onto Kaede’s hand, thrusting it onto her own face, nuzzling into the touch. Kaede, initially disconcerted, mollified to the contact, brushing Tsumugi’s hair behind her ear, stroking the length of her jaw. 

“What happened to me?” 

Kaede inhaled shakily, “You’re… you’ve been born, I think.”

Tsumugi spared a glance at the enchanted silver gates over the horizon. They were open. The bars stood ajar, as if open for an embrace, yet there was no hospitable quality in their air of superiority.

“Darling, what’re you…”    
The blonde’s words dissipated as she tilted her head to where Tsumugi was looking. Her shoulders sloped, contracting.

“What’s wrong, Kaede?” 

“I didn’t think they’d open again.” Kaede murmured, voice thick with mesmerization. “I thought I’d be here forever.”

“I don’t understand,” said the blue girl. 

“When I appeared they were already open, so I went through them. When you showed up though, they were closed. I couldn’t let that stop me. I decided to go see you anyway, and I kind of assumed I was permanently locked out,” Kaede pensively muttered. 

Tsumugi sat flabbergasted, decoding every last syllable of her lover’s cryptic explanation. It dawned on her that Kaede was planning on staying with her forever, regardless of whatever she was giving up, and the knowledge of such a fact made Tsumugi’s bones tingle in a creepy sort of way. 

The blonde promptly stood, brushing her already immaculate robes with her hands in a single, swift motion. Her wings bristled and perked up, outstretching. Tsumugi did not realize the extensiveness of Kaede’s wingspan; it was astounding, yet underlyingly formidable. 

“That doesn’t matter now!” The angel beamed, “Come on, Tsumugi. We’ve been talking for ages. It’s rude to keep people waiting, you know.”

_ It’s rude to keep people waiting.  _ The words reverberated in Tsumugi’s mind, cluttering any cohesive thought she may have been forging. People? Surely, there weren’t others?

Tsumugi shook her head vigorously, withdrawing from Kaede’s outstretched arm. “No. No, I can’t. Kaede… I killed them. They hate me, surely.”

“I don’t think so,” The Beloved countered, “They said they kind of wanted to see you, actually.”   
“No. Nobody wants to see me. Why would anybody ever want to see me?”

The angel commiserated, “Tsumugi, please, for me?”   
“Amami will be there,” She rebuffed once more, voice fraught with hysteria. “He’ll hate me, will he not?”   
“There’s only one way to find out, darling.”

Tsumugi appeared small and pathetic, not unlike a frightened prey. “Saihara isn’t here, is he?”

Kaede shook her head, emoting no particular emotion. “I don’t think he’ll come for a while, and I doubt he wants me to wait for him, to be honest.”  
“God, so he… he survived.” Tsumugi whispered to herself, a repose torpefying her fear. 

She brought herself to an upright posture, tepidly going through the motions in a perfunctory fashion. Kaede clutched her hand, warm and assuring, and lead her to the gates.

At first Tsumugi fretted over the fact she would be unable to move as she wasn’t able to previously, but to her amazement, she was able to walk with ease. The nightmare was over, and the gates drew closer with each step.

The pearly ground curled under her feet, hissing at contact. Nevertheless, Kaede led her with certitude. It was reminiscent of her mortal life in how she performed every minute action with an endearing conviction. 

The gates towered over the two, at least thirty meters in height. They were outstanding and breathtaking and imposing and Tsumugi hated them and wanted nothing more than to shun them and flee, yet Kaede’s heartening grasp was unforgiving in its  obduracy .

There they stood, ivory and ebony, eternal in their love.

As Tsumugi elapsed through the gates of iron, she felt no change occur. It was unpretentious in its simplicity, for the tension seemed to amount to less than nothing. 

Before she could formulate another opinion to appear in her mind, the swathe of bleach white before her eyes mutated. At first, Tsumugi was enveloped in an emetic gale of discordant color, literally swept off her feet, the medley of saturation hideous assaulting her physically in its maelstrom_. _The colors began to rage with less intensity as they sharpened into a newfound crispness, a decisive perspicuousness. There was rich teeming plains of grass - a courtyard - and russet bricks piled high to form ostentatious edifices. From within, laughter and chatter floated into the clearing. Ebullience made itself at home in the gentle breeze that smelled of spring and the rustle of trees from the orchard. A crest of ivory, ebony, and vermillion topped with a diaded, nestled at the centre of the principal structure. 

With her exalted Kaede at her side, Tsumugi perched in awe at the plinth of the perfect Hope’s Peak Academy.

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. The last entry of the Greyscales series. I pray it was enjoyable! It was my first series I’ve ever posted on AO3, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Thank you to all of those who left kind comments and kudos , they drove me to keep writing this story throughout! Even outside of writing, they brought me great joy. I read them periodically throughout the day sometimes. 
> 
> Anyway, here’s a list of references:   
“... the gates were made not of gold…” A reference to how the gates of heaven are often portrayed as golden!  
“... but rather an iridescent silver.” I chose silver 1.) because it’s a form of grey, relating back to the idea of ebony/ivory and 2.) because Judas was paid silver in return for betraying Jesus   
“No evidence of even one of the nine circles was present.” This is referencing the nine circles of hell that are often portrayed in media   
“Knowledge was a rotting apple…” is a reference to Genesis and the story of the apple and how it is representative of knowledge!  
“Four wings of fire burst from her shoulder blades…” My description of angels is based on the one described in Genesis 3. The angel sent to guard the Garden of Eden was described as having wings of fire and a flaming sword!   
“Helen of Troy surely envied her.” a very obvious reference to Helen of Troy, whose beauty was so great that it pretty much started the Trojan war.   
“Grackle-black robes…” is referencing the Grackle bird! It is a relatively unremarkable bird. It looks like a crow, but is smaller and (by popular opinion) uglier.   
“... tainted with stigmata…” Stigmata has a double meaning, one of which is biblical, and both are applicable to this situation.  
“‘No. Nothing I do is ever good’” are direct lyrics from the song I Can’t Handle Change by ROAR! (Side note: ROAR is one of my favorite bands of all time”  
“It leaves behind a thick residue with seemingly no origin, but it smells of wildflowers and candle wax” this is a description of chrism! It is used in baptisms, which is basically what this whole scene is representative of. (Side note: I know Japanese folks are not typically Christian! I do not mean to disrespect their culture and their traditional religion. Baptism is obviously a religiously significant act, but it is only significant in its symbolism of rebirth. I am not trying to say that Tsumugi has become Christian, I am trying to portray that she has been redeemed, and I am using baptism as a vehicle for THAT message).   
“hollyhock-colored irises” refers to the Hollyhock flower, one which is typically pink :)  
And that’s it for allusions in Silver, as well as the entire Greyscales series!  
I think after this fanfiction I’m going to write something for Haikyuu, as it is my ultimate comfort media! I have way too many ideas for that show :’) Guess my favorite ship and I’ll leave kudos on every single one of your stories… I jest, I jest… prithee?  
Anyway, I’m certainly not done with KaeMugi! I have many fanfictions planned for them, including a pregame piece, a fantasy au, and possibly an alternate ending to DRV3 where Tsumugi is a survivor along with the original three. I’m open to prompt suggestions!   
That’s it for Greyscales! Unless I decide to go full crackhead mode and add an entirely new entry, which I highly doubt. I hope you enjoyed this afterlife fanfic! ♡ 
> 
> OTHER SOCIAL MEDIAS:  
Instagram - @wormweeb [cosplay]  
Tumblr - @antsu-in-my-pantsu [general memery], @wormweeb [fandom]


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